Home, tomorrow. By Ruhi Lee
The German word Fernweh is like a hammock for my bones. It loosely translates to, ‘farsickness’ or ‘homesickness for a place one has never been to.’ I am comforted when I stumble upon words that give expression to nameless feelings.
*
My father, too, may have found solace in knowing such a word existed, had he picked it up during his time in Germany. He was born in Bellary, India and spent his childhood moving between his mother’s village in Chitradurga and Hidkal Dam and Dharwad. As an adult he worked in countries across the Middle East and Europe, before migrating to Naarm (Melbourne). When asked, of all the places he’d spent his peripatetic life, which one he felt most at home in, he didn’t have an answer for me.
* Before COVID-19 changed everything, I had plans to visit my “homeland” in India. Exciting though it was, I was secretly relieved at having to cancel. A part of me was reluctant to return to a place where I’d once again embody statistics that made me feel weak and brought to remembrance the mouldy corners of my past.
In India, a child is sexually abused every 15 minutes and in 50% of those cases, the perpetrator is a known and trusted adult.¹²
In India, a woman is raped every 20 minutes.³